As I have built more and more Micropolis modules, I have found that often, it’s one or two seed pieces which give me an idea. These can be far-removed from their original intent or use in sets they came with. A prime example is the Star Wars Jedi Interceptor (75038) which I dismantled in early November last year.

I have already used one of its four solar panels on my Micropolis MOC, Butterfly Batteries & Solar. But in that model, its purpose was the same.

On 7th November I built my first Micropolis module, NE:ON Mall, which was effectively constructed from a load of table scraps. But the Micropolis bug had bitten. The next day I received the excellent Women of NASA set, complete with a tiny Space Shuttle. That looks about the right scale for Micropolis, I thought. I put it next to the canopy to see what their relative sizes were.

In my head, an idea was forming… and all those things were suddenly coming together. How would the canopy look for the entrance to my Air & Space Museum? I set to work with LEGO Digital Designer and noodled about with the building for a few days before I arrived at a structure I was happy with.

VIrtual MOC: Micropolis Air & Space Museum Designed In LDD

The downside was the cost… When I parted out the design on Bricklink it was suggesting I needed to spend a fortune on three elements – trans yellow bricks, blue grille profile bricks and those skylights I so admired. So I left the design on the electronic drawing board for several months.

Having acquired a pot with loads of regular blue 1×2 bricks in my Watford haul a few weeks ago, my thoughts returned to this design. I’m now a bit more savvy about ordering stuff from Bricklink, and realised I was better off making several orders (even accounting for postage costs) for the most expensive parts, rather than bankrupting myself by taking the algorithm’s suggested stores – which often work out much more expensive. Even so, I had to order the skylights from Germany and some of the blue grille bricks from the Netherlands. I slowly gathered the remaining parts and waited for postie to deliver the bulk orders. And today the last pieces came!

MOC – Air & Space Museum Overhead View

I have refined a few details here and there while building it for real, but the basic structure and design were mostly ironed out digitally, a first for me working this way. I’m more likely to fiddle about with a load of bricks from my drawers and see what I can come up with. But I am delighted with the way this has turned out.

MOC – Air & Space Museum – Front

That canopy makes a striking entrance space, complete with rocket, telescope and real space suit exhibits underneath. The Micropolis visitors are then encouraged to tour the three floors of exhibits in the main hall.

MOC – Air & Space Museum – Right

Those skylights make the space inside bright and airy, I’m sure!

MOC – Air & Space Museum – Rear

The visitor is then lead across the bridge to the Annex where there are more exhibits about the future of Space travel, before they come down to the ground floor restaurant with access to the Rocket Garden where they can see the Shuttle, boosters, Apollo Command Module and Astronauts’ Memorial up close before returning to the exit via the Gift Shop in the main hall.

MOC – Air & Space Museum – Left

Museum entrance details…

MOC – Air & Space Museum – Entrance Details

The Astronauts’ Memorial in the Rocket Garden, where the Eternal Flame never dies.

MOC – Air & Space Museum – Astronauts’ Memorial

The Shuttle nose points towards this fine example of one of the Apollo Mission Command Capsules which brought the astronauts safely back to Earth… [No, I don’t have a headless Star Wars droid in my Minifig collection. Honest.]

MOC – Air & Space Museum – Shuttle & Apollo Command Module

Shuttle Endeavor has pride of place in the Rocket Garden.

MOC – Air & Space Museum – Rocket Garden Exhibits

It’s been an interesting journey for me, remembering how all these disparate things came together. I would be so excited to visit the Museum if I was small enough to fit inside! And it seems to be popular with bigger folks too – my pictures on Flickr were blogged by ArchBrick – I’m in very esteemed company, as I’m usually in awe of things I see on that!

When I first discovered the Micropolis Standard back in November last year, I did lots of research online to see the modules that other folks had built to get some inspiration. The Virtual Micropolis website was a great starting point, along with the Flickr group dedicated to it.

I downloaded the LDD file to see how it was built, and soon after acquired the big pink lattice pieces in a random eBay lot (parts 30016 and 6165 which were both in an old Belivlle set, the Sunshine Home. Belville was a precursor to the Friends line, aimed at girls, hence all the sugar-pink elements). Then I left it as I needed loads of navy blue and trans clear bricks to build the main structure, which I didn’t have.

After my recent haul from Watford, I realised I probably had enough of the trans clear bricks and could use the blue ones instead of navy for my version of the block. But I didn’t want it to be exactly the same as the original, so I did some experimentation with shapes. After a bit of fiddling, I came up with this – with the two ends slightly staggered from the main straight pieces.

Belville Place – 1/2 Block 3D Sketch

I worked on it some more and eventually my 1/2 block of apartments, Belville Place, was finished. I put in on the shelf for a couple of weeks.

MOC Belville Place – 1/2 Block

A couple of days ago, an eBay lot I had won arrived (see Haul #13 for more info) and that gave me two more pink lattice corners. Bricklink orders which arrived on the same day provided more sand blue 1×2 bricks with groove (4216) and some 1×2 bley grill tiles – I was never quite happy with the black studs showing on the edges of the roof of the 1/2 block.

I set about expanding Belville Place to a whole block, with another small tower on one side and a sunken garden filling up the last 1/4 block. Voila! A very up-market development which will sit right on the waterfront of Micropolis.

MOC Belville Place Complete Block – Front

It looks very nice from the “rear” view as well:

MOC Belville Place Complete Block – Rear

The sunken garden provides somewhere to relax for the residents, while admiring the sculptures.

I had some transparent yellow 1×2 bricks left over from those I needed for another model, plus some white 1×2 bricks from my Watford PAB haul, and thought they would go well together. I also found some triangular bley plates which became the roof and steered the design of the rest of it – hence the nod to the Greek mathematical genius, I decided to call it Pythagoras Place.

I see it as an office block in my downtown area. While the atrium at the front has huge windows, round the back is a bit more enclosed. But there are some round skylights up top among the solar panels on the roof. These two bespoke tiles (2431pb499) came from the second Women of NASA set which I bought to build the Space Shuttle and Boosters for my Air & Space Museum.

Postie brought me loads of parcels today. The first batch were various Bricklink orders I’ve put in over the last week, to finish off two projects which I will blog about very soon.

Bricklink Haul: Blue Plates, Sand Blue Bricks etc

Next up was this big bag of mixed pastel bricks, plates and all sorts of stuff. Looks like someone has broken up another of those Belville Sunshine Home playsets – I recognise loads of the pieces in this bag! Very pleased to get two more of the pink lattice corner pieces (30016) – watch this space for why!

eBay Haul – More Belville Bits

Finally, a random mixture of much smaller lattice fencing came. Not sure what this will be for yet, but it’s always good to have options when building.

My recent haul from Watford has given me quite a few useful pieces to construct another Micropolis block – things like white 1×2 and pale blue 1×1 bricks. I combined these with some pink 1×2 SNOT bricks (47905 with two studs on opposite sides – I didn’t have any of the more appropriate one-sided version, 87087). The high rise residential tower Pastel Heights was born.

MOC Pastel Heights – Front

I added some landscaping in the rear courtyard so the residents will have somewhere nice to sit. And the penthouse flat takes up the whole of the top floor. The view from up there must be great!

MOC Pastel Heights – Rear

Once again, I used the same elements on each floor but varied their placement to give some variety to the build. I topped it off with some magenta sloped bricks I had in my drawer (I think at least some of them were in one of the earliest Creative Brick Boxes 10698 I bought last year and have been wondering what to do with since). Plus some white 2×2 turntable bases and 1×2 grilles for roof greebles.